Who wants to do business with people who:

• deliver late?
• can’t recognize an opportunity on time?
• don’t care about their own market position, until it’s too late?
• say they’re World Class but can’t be bothered to compete in a great Awards Festival?

Worst of all…
…who wants to do business with people who don’t even know that their entries for the O4B Awards have to be in by Friday, 10th September? Yes, that’s 10th September this year – by 5pm, which is 5 o’clock in the afternoon.

Call yourself World Class? Prove it. Hit the O4B Deadline and I might just believe you, maybe.

And finally (almost)
Here’s a list of the Award Sponsors

• Dorset Echo
• Enterprise Connection
• Stag Office Products
• Blondz
• Aquarium Technology (Business of Year Winner 2009)
• Getaway Digital
• DJ Property
• Champagne Films
• Open 4 Business
• Weymouth College – Main Sponsor

And finally
Without looking, answer this key question about being a World Class Businesses:
What’s the deadline for the O4B 2010 Awards?
All answers should be written on a postcard and addressed to yourself as a little reminder.

Good luck!

…scroll down to Comments and Just tell us!

The Sita Trust has just announced the next funding round of its new Young Person’s Volunteering Fund and you could get your hands on up to £10,000 for volunteering projects if you’re aged between 14-25 year olds (there are other rules, of course).

The fund has been created to help young people to volunteer their time to create or enhance waste facilities that can be enjoyed by the wider community. To be eligible, applicants must be able to show that young people will be fully involved in the design and development of the project, which has to meet the rules of the Landfill Communities Fund.

If you’re interested, the deadline is 10am on 9 August 2010 and your application has to demonstrate that it takes account the Nine Principles of Youth Action, which have been set out by the Youth Action Network. To save you hunting them down, we’ve summarised them below.

For more information about the funding, visit: www.sitatrust.org.uk/volunteering

The Nine Principles of Youth Action

1. Youth Participation: Young people are in the driving seat; they decide what happens.

2. Benefiting others: Young people don’t just do it for themselves, others benefit too!

3. Fun & rewarding: No one wants to do something that’s boring; it has to be fun and give a sense of achievement.

4. Flexibility: It should be when, where and how young people want it.

5. Support: Young people aren’t just ‘left to it’; they’re supported in their aspirations and efforts.

6. Recognition: Say thank you! Young people’s efforts should be celebrated.

7. Progression & Leadership: Young people want to develop; they enjoy a challenge, and this should be built in!

8. Diverse & inclusive: Any young person should be able to do youth action; think creatively to break down those barriers.

9. Skills & personal development: Youth action is a journey, with learning and education an important part of the experience.

If you want OSTV to help you develop your project for online television, contact us.

Of course, it’s not those other BAFTA awards. It’s not those boring ones we see every year on the telly, the ones that always seem to happen in places like London instead of right here in Dorset. Those BAFTA awards are about the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, but all this is about to change, probably to something like the Best Amazing Fantastic Telly Awards.

This may not be the actual title we use but the point being made here is that our awards are going to be different. They’re going to be less about London and all about Dorset. They’re going to be less about million pound productions and more about creativity and imagination. In other words, they’re going to be lots more fun.

And we won’t be giving the winners a shiny-face-on-a-pole as their prizes. We don’t know what we will be giving but it definitely won’t be a shiny-face-on-a-pole.

How do you get involved? Easy! Register on the OSTV site and we’ll keep you posted with all the details.

Finally, how about giving us some ideas about what we should call the OSTV Awards. The best idea gets to go for a cup of coffee with the OSTV Directors. Now, how cool is that? Well, try getting the big-wigs at BBC to dip into their pockets for something as extravagant as this and you’ll realise just how hospitable we can be here in Dorset.

EDMs are formal motions submitted for debate in the House of Commons. However, very few EDMs are actually debated. Instead, they are used for reasons such as publicising the views of individual MPs, drawing attention to specific events or campaigns, and demonstrating the extent of parliamentary support for a particular cause or point of view.

Anyway, the real point is that someone’s had an Early Day Motion about, and under the heading of, yes, wait for it, Local Television. This means it’s about us, OSTV. How cool is that? A mention in Parliament; not directly but they were close enough. And here’s what it says…

That this House notes that Ofcom has described community radio as `one of the best things…that we have done…far more successful than anybody anticipated’; recognises the opportunity now exists to enable communities to develop their own free-to-air television stations as a platform for news, information, discussion, entertainment and advertising; believes it is important to avoid creating spectrum gatekeepers able to abuse their market power in the supply of spectrum suitable for community-based television services; and calls on the Government and Ofcom to co-operate to implement a licensing regime so that Freeview and cable carriage is secured for the roll-out of a new tier of local television across the UK with priority on the electronic programme guide.

Now, anyone who knows me will know that I didn’t understand half of that, but the half I did get sounded pretty good to me. Let me explain how I would have written it – had I been asked.

That this House unanimously agrees that Open Screen TV is absolutely fantastic and should be supported by every Member of Parliament, as well as all other Governments around the world. Why? Because the boys at OSTV are leading the way and all we can do as MPs, is try to catch up and give them all the grant funding they obviously deserve. Their focus on community involvement and on training and development is groundbreaking and will be a massive boost to Dorset and the world. Even some of their programmes are amazing and, as for their plans for the future, we can only wait with bated breath to see what innovative, creative, imaginative, awe-inspiring things they’ll come up with next. Sign here.

That’s what I would have written instead of all that complicated stuff about Spectrum Gatekeepers and Licensing Regimes. Why can’t people get to the point and say what they really mean?
OSTV

Earlier this week we met with Sara Hudson and James Fenton from Watershed and they came up with a spectacular idea. It’s a single initiative but has a range of things built into it, from film-making and community action to local events and the possibility of international travel. By throwing in some crazy stuff, a dash of community spirit and a bucket load of creativity, we reckon we have a recipe for something big and bold and beautiful.

The problem is, it’s all Hush-Hush at the moment so we can’t tell anyone for another week or so. Well, actually, it’s not really Hush-Hush, it’s just that we haven’t had the time to work out all the details yet so, if it’s detail you want, you’re too early. But, as you will probably appreciate, we’re slaving away every day, sometimes for more than an hour, pulling together the various strands of this fantastic film-making initiative. When we’ve finished, we’ll let you know.

If you don’t know about O4B, you should. So, here’s the low-down:

O4B is one of the best business-to-business festivals in Dorset. It promotes the sharing of information and opens up discussions on business topics. Not only that, but it showcases Dorset businesses and, through its Awards scheme, it rewards business success and outstanding achievement.

Every year there’s a different theme and for 2010 it’s World Class Business.

So if you’re a Dorset business and you’re world class, which you should be, then O4B 2010 is what you need to be thinking about. You can get all the details at www.o4business.co.uk or you can contact Gareth Jones for general O4B Information or about the Awards 01305 838476 or contact Julie Cleaver for anything to do with Press & Marketing Enquiries 01305 774629

By the way, did we mention that OSTV is an Official Media Partner for O4B 2010? Of course we did but it does no harm to repeat important info like this – it’s what makes OSTV a World Class Business.

If you just want to explore the OSTV website, that’s fine. But if you want to hear all about us, what we do, why we do it, how we do it and what’s in it for you and your organisation, get in touch.

We’re happy to turn up at any meeting, seminar, conference, or any other event that provides free cups of tea, and tell you all about ourselves and how you can get involved with us. And we’ll answer all your questions. Yes, even the really difficult ones.

Not a bad deal for a cup of tea (and some biscuits).

Go to our contact form here: http://www.openscreen.tv/about-2/contact-2/

We have a total of 12 themed channels and your video could be shown on at least two of them. All you have to do is send it to us.

We’re particularly interested in videos that inform, entertain, educate and inspire. They can be professionally made, but they don’t have to be. You may have produced some great footage as part of a business campaign or a community initiative or simply for fun. Whatever your reason and no matter what the topic is (within reason) we could have it up on Open Screen within a few days.

So what do you have that would be of interest to others? Let us know and we’ll help you reach the audiences you want to reach.

Get in touch by using our contact form.

or send us your film by clicking here

First on the agenda was the channel line-up. It was meant to be a simple matter of signing off on our previous agreements but, no, someone decided to throw in some new ideas and we spent an unscheduled 3 hour session reaching another agreement.

Then it was the website. This debate was wide ranging and brutal. We battled over everything from colour schemes, to fonts, to menu selections, to launch dates, to whose turn it was to make the coffee – not easy decisions to make in a blood-splattered environment like the OSTV Board Room but, hey, we were trying to get it right.

Next came the actual programmes and, without going into the detail of who broke whose leg, I was happy and very excited at our final decision, which was exactly the same list of programmes we’d started with an hour earlier.

Any Other Business was postponed until the next meeting, even though no one is quite sure when this will be.

If the cameras had been running, we would have had one more programme that would make The Apprentice, Dragons Den and Casualty look like puppet shows for the Under 5s.

Are all Board Room meetings like this or are the people at OSTV just “different”?